We work with a talented group of post-graduate students who are exploring topics relating to resilience.

Rizwan Ahmad

Rizwan’s PhD research focuses on the supply chain resilience with network perspective to investigate the comparison between international and domestic supply chains. His research will also focus on how organizations work in a supply chain to build a resilient network, and also, how these practices help the whole supply chain to recover quickly from a crisis/disaster. His research will also propose the resilient supply chain scale.

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Rizwan earned Master of Business Administration (MBA) Degree with specialization in Supply Chain Management from University of Central Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. He worked as Research Associate for two years in Pakistan, with research focus on supply chain collaboration. His research looked at the supplier development practices of the multinational/national companies with local supply network. He then joined the Department of Accounting and Information System at the University of Canterbury as a doctoral student.

Alexandrina Bojilova

Establishing the Link between Curiosity and Resilience

Alia’s PhD research aims to bridge the gap between individual and organizational resilience, using the construct of curiosity and related organizational constructs as a framework. Her research will focus on whether and how curiosity may serve as a vehicle for resilience building and maintenance. It aims to better articulate the relationship between the individual and organizational resilience, using empirical and theoretical evidence.

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Alia holds a BA (Psychology and Russian Language), MsC (Hons) in Applied Psychology and a PGDipBus. She is a registered psychologist and has worked with the NZDF since 2006. Alia has worked as the lead selection, assessment and performance psychologist for peak performance teams as well as the Organisational Development Psychologist for the NZDF, amongst others. Alia has completed a number of operational deployments, including to Afghanistan, East Timor, Israel and Syria.

Sabrina Daddar

The influence of culture on organisational resilience

Her current research focuses on exploring Māori interpretations of resilience, and how resiliency is implemented in the context of Māori organisations. The research aims to explore Māori organisational interpretations of (1) what constitutes “resilience,” and (2) how Māori experience and implement resiliency.

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Sabrina earned her Bachelors of Administrative Studies (Hons) in General Management, and Certificate in Emergency Management in 2010, and her Masters degree in Disaster and Emergency Management in 2013 from York University in Toronto, Canada. Her Masters research was titled "THE PANDEMICS PROJECT – The Potential of Recurrent Epidemics and Pandemics in a Highly Mobile Global Society," which highlighted that a multifaceted approach is needed in order to determine the suitable precautionary measures required to ascertain and interdict the potential for recurrent epidemics and pandemics in this highly mobile global society. She completed an Attestation of Attendance – Sciences de la Terre et de l’environnement – CERG-C for field work from the University of Geneva in 2014. Sabrina has worked as a Research Assistant for two years, including work for a Community Resiliency project, and within a range of public preparedness education roles for three years.

Rabia Ijaz

Resilience of business models of small and medium enterprises (SME's)

Rabia aims to identify the components of the resilient business model for new businesses. She is seeking answers on how and why some firms have performed better than the others during their early years of operations by analysing different cases after the 2011 earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand.

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Rabia earned her degree in Master of Business Administration (dual specialization in Marketing and Supply Chain Management) from Pakistan in 2012. After her MBA, she worked as a Lecturer in a private university. Her areas of expertise are Marketing, Supply Chain Management and Organizational Behaviour. After being a lecturer for two years, she decided to come to New Zealand to pursue her PhD at the University of Canterbury under the supervision of Dr. Venkataraman Nilakant and Dr. John Vargo.

Khiam Lee

The Dynamics of Collaborative Emergency Management

Khiam’s research examines the dynamics of collaboration of ASEAN Member States particularly the national disaster management offices during different cycles of disaster risk management. Using multiple-case study methods to explore the phenomenon of multi-party collaboration in the face of extreme events such as mega-scale natural disasters. Robust study and comparison will be made between Indonesia and Malaysia.

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Khiam read Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London. He is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and ASEAN Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ASEAN-ERAT) member. Khiam served the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre), an ASEAN inter-governmental body, where he managed regional capacity-building programme development related to disaster risk management, international cooperation and resources mobilization in his capacity as the Head of Corporate Affairs cum Chief Administrative Officer in the Secretariat based in Jakarta.

Prior to that, Khiam served the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) in the Information and Communication Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division, Bangkok. He was among the key team members to facilitate and administer the Intergovernmental Secretariat for Regional Space Applications Programme for Sustainable Development (RESAP). From 2007 to 2013, Khiam was the Secretary-General of the iBurst Association (iBA), an international NGO comprised of wireless broadband service providers from 14 countries which he co-founded in Kuala Lumpur. He served in the private sector in Malaysia and China prior to 2007.

Michael Bethany

Role of Social Capital in Small Business Disaster Recovery

His aim is to identify how organisations create, maintain, and exploit inter-organisational social capital during disasters and crises toward increased organisational resilience.

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Michael earned his Bachelor of Arts degree (magna cum laude) in Cinema and Television Arts from California State University, Northridge in 2006. While working for the United States Small Business Administration’s Office of Disaster Assistance, he earned his Master of Science degree (summa cum laude) in Emergency Management Administration from California State University, Long Beach. His graduate research focused on business continuity planning among business organisations in the Sacramento region of California. Specifically, his research aimed to identify the drivers and barriers of business continuity planning in effort to increase planning levels by businesses in the Sacramento region.

Prior to working for the federal government, Michael worked as a project manager in telecommunications building global voice and data networks. Prior to that Michael owned and operated a successful paralegal and private investigation company serving numerous financial and attorney clients in the Sacramento area.

Ann Brown

Navigating the challenges of change: Nonprofit–business collaboration from the nonprofit perspective

Ann’s thesis focuses on exploring the influence of working relationships with business on community and voluntary sector organisations.

Using multiple case studies from across New Zealand, her research aims to capture relationship types and elements that serve to influence non-profit’s capacity to learn, adapt, and respond to challenges and changes in their environment.

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Ann holds a BA in Product Design from Nottingham Trent University, 2005, and earned her Masters in Design for Development at Kingston University in 2013. The MA focused on the value of design as a vehicle for addressing social and ecological concerns, redirecting design practice towards progressive sustainability and social agendas. Prior to and following her MA, Ann worked as a designer and project manager in a range of design disciplines.

Henrieta Hamilton Skurak

Better understanding the relationships between employer, employee and community resiliency

Henrieta's thesis aims at better understanding the relationships between employer, employee and community resiliency (using not-for-profit organisational resiliency as a proxy for community outcomes). Her thesis is Earthquake Commission (EQC) funded. Particular focus in her work will be directed at the comparison between corporate and independent volunteering in terms of self-determination for the action, associated outcomes and support availability. Potential differences in motivation and outcomes may aid organisations to better determine the support they offer to achieve the desired, optimal outcome for all, employees, employers and the community.

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Henrieta has earned her Masters in Commerce at the University of Canterbury with a thesis that focused on the direct and indirect influences of job demands, engagement and drive on employee work-life conflict and well-being. After the completion of her masters, she joined the Department of Psychology to undertake her doctoral studies in Applied Psychology under the supervision of Dr Sanna Malinen, Dr Joana Kuntz and Dr Katharina Näswall.

Lev Zhuravsky

Creating resilience in health care organizations. Role of shared leadership in realigning a gap between work as imagined and work as done.

Resilience Engineering (RE) is a relatively new approach to creating and enhancing resilience in complex adaptive systems including health care organizations. It strives to identify and correctly value behaviors and resources that contribute to a system’s ability to respond to the unexpected.

One of the focuses of fast developing field of resilience engineering research is on the difference between how work is being thought of either before it takes place when it is being planned or after it has taken place when consequences are being evaluated, and how work is actually carried out where and when it happens. The two terms commonly used to describe this difference are work-as-imagined (WAI) and work-as-done (WAD). The objective of this research is to explore gap between WAI and WAD, level of collaboration and application of shared leadership model in two main providers of primary and secondary health care in Christchurch-Christchurch public Hospital and Pegasus Health PHO (Primary Health Organisation).

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Lev is an experienced health professional with particular expertise in disaster management, crisis leadership, trauma and critical care nursing. Currently Lev holds a position of Clinical Nurse Director for Patients Care and Access at Waitemata District Health Board, Auckland. Lev was actively involved in leading disaster response, relocation and re-establishment of acute edical services at Christchurch Hospital following the Christchurch earthquake.

He completed Masters (Health Management) at the University of Otago in 2013, his research explored crisis leadership in the Intensive Care Unit of Christchurch hospital following an earthquake. Lev’s main research and project development interests involve creating of competency- based crisis leadership training programmes, fostering and support of informal leadership in crisis, shared leadership in high stakes environment, resilient engineering and building resilient health care systems.

Lev is an active member of international research group-Resilient Health Care Net (RCHN). He received a Christchurch Earthquake Award for Service in 2012.